1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, control method processing, and a computer-readable medium, called PDL processing and rendering processing and, more particularly, to accelerating processing of PDL processing, intermediate data generation processing, and rendering processing required in an image forming apparatus represented by a printer or multi-function peripheral having a plurality of processors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, processing associated with rendering executed in an image forming apparatus allows to form an image when a plurality of processors share processes associated with image formation.
Also, a conventional accelerating technology associated with image forming processing implements accelerating processing by sharing processes among different devices. For example, “Canon technology UFR/LIPS V” (URL: http://web.canon.jp/technology/canon_tech/explanation/h speed_processing.html) discloses a accelerating technology associated with processes between an information processing apparatus (PC) and image forming apparatus (multi-function peripheral: MFP). A feature of image forming processing based on this technology lies in that the information processing apparatus and image forming apparatus share processing loads associated with image formation. That is, the processing costs of the processes including page layout processing, graphics processing, and image processing are optimized between the information processing apparatus and image forming apparatus, thus shortening a time required from a print processing start instruction from the information processing apparatus until actual print processing executed by a print engine.
Another technology of accelerating the image forming processing implements accelerating processing using a plurality of processors included in an image forming apparatus. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-307924 describes a technology which attains high-speed processing by sharing processes by three processors including two CPUs and a “rendering engine” that implements rendering, and executing parallel processes for data in large quantities. Image forming processing according to this technology attains high-speed image formation by connecting a plurality of processors which can implement different processes, dividing processes associated with image formation, and executing the divided processes associated with image formation in the respective processors.
As described above, in the related art, a plurality of different processes are executed using a plurality of different processors, thus accelerating the processing associated with image formation.
However, in the related art, PDL interpretation processing (in other words, a PDL interpreter) associated with image forming processing generates intermediate data by interpreting PDL data based on that PDL data. Then, rendering processing (in other words, a renderer) generates raster image data by executing rendering processing based on the generated intermediate data. A problem of a processing speed drop is posed, as a result of carrying on the processes independently of whether or not the process in execution lowers the processing speed of the next step in the above respective processing steps. More specifically, upon reception of intermediate data having overlapping rendering commands in large quantities and rendering commands having large quantities of depth information, the processing speed of the rendering processing based on the related art is considerably reduced due to complexities of the depth information and overlapping information included in the intermediate data. The related art executes the PDL interpretation processing irrespective of whether or not to reduce the processing speed of the renderer is considerably. That is, the PDL interpreter carries on the PDL interpretation processing even when addition of intermediate data generated as a result of interpretation of PDL data during interpretation to the already generated intermediate data considerably reduces the speed of the rendering processing.
Hence, the related art does not check, during processing associated with image formation, whether or not addition of intermediate data generated based on PDL data during interpretation to the already generated intermediate data considerably reduces the speed of the rendering processing depending on their features. Since the related art does not include the above checking process, it is impossible to execute optimization processing during PDL interpretation in advance so as to accelerating the rendering processing during processing associated with image formation.